A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, the third tremor to rattle the area since early yesterday, the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said.
The agency recorded the shallow quake off the Mentawai Islands, off Sumatra’s west coast just before 10:30am and said it did not trigger a tsunami warning.
The agency had earlier recorded a magnitude of 6.4, but revised that to 6.1, an agency spokesperson said.
Photo: Reuters
Three consecutive earthquakes struck the area with increasing intensity since the early hours of yesterday, with a magnitude 5.2 tremor recorded before dawn, followed by a magnitude 5.4 quake less than an hour later.
The magnitude 6.1 earthquake was felt strongly for several seconds by residents in the Mentawai Islands, in the provincial capital of Padang, and in the surrounding mountainous area of Bukitinggi, the disaster agency said in a statement.
The agency said there were no reports of casualties, but there was minor damage to buildings on Siberut Island.
Separately, Novriadi, a local disaster official in the Mentawai Islands, said that residents in several villages had been evacuated to higher ground and a local church, school and health facility had been slightly damaged.
The disaster agency urged the public not to panic and warned of the potential for aftershocks.
Padang was struck by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in 2009 that killed more than 1,100 people, injured many more and caused widespread destruction.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say